I just finished successfully the upgrade of my AX6 to openWRT!!
The process took me many hours, and I only was able to make it with the help of Gemini (which also helped in writing the flowing text).
First, I want to say a huge thank you to whoever put together the installation guide for the Xiaomi Redmi AX6 (AX3000) on the wiki (https://openwrt.org/inbox/toh/xiaomi/xiaomi_redmi_ax6_ax3000). I successfully flashed my router and got LuCI running!
However, as a Windows user, without a huge knowledge in routersI ran into several major roadblocks during the installation process that the current wiki doesn't mention. I wanted to share my workarounds here in hopes that we can update the wiki to save future users hours of troubleshooting.
Here are the main issues I encountered and how I solved them:
1. The Exploit & Wi-Fi Handshake (Router B Setup) The guide assumes the Xiaomi router will easily connect to the "trap" router (Router B) to fail the DHCP check. In reality, the Xiaomi is very strict:
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IPv6 prevents the exploit: The guide says to disable IPv4 DHCP on Router B, but doesn't mention IPv6. OpenWrt leaves IPv6 Router Advertisements/DHCPv6 on by default. Because the Xiaomi grabbed an IPv6 address, it didn't trigger the 169.254.x.x emergency fallback. I had to explicitly disable IPv6 on Router B's LAN interface.
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Strict Wi-Fi connection: The Xiaomi refused to connect to Router B until I downgraded Router B's Wi-Fi encryption to "WPA/WPA2 Mixed mode" and ensured no other SSIDs were broadcasting on that radio.
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Outdated Bridge Instructions: The documentation mentions checking the "Physical Settings" tab to bridge the Wi-Fi and LAN. In newer OpenWrt versions, this tab is gone; users now need to go to Network -> Devices -> br-lan to bridge the ports.
2. SCP / SSH Issues with Modern Windows The guide simply says "Copy the image over SCP," but modern Windows 10/11 OpenSSH clients will completely fail out of the box:
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Legacy SCP flag required: Modern Windows defaults to SFTP. Because the router runs the tiny initramfs version initially, it doesn't have an SFTP server. I had to use the -O flag in Windows CMD to force legacy SCP.
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Deprecated Crypto: Windows blocks the old ssh-rsa protocol used by the stock Xiaomi firmware. I had to add -o HostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa to the SCP command to connect.
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Frozen CMD Prompts: The Windows command line kept freezing on the Yes/No fingerprint prompt. Adding -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no bypassed this. (Suggested SCP command for Windows users: scp -O -o HostKeyAlgorithms=+ssh-rsa -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no factory.ubi root@192.168.31.1:/tmp/)
3. Firmware Confusion (Snapshots vs. Stable)
- Missing Web UI: The guide links directly to a Snapshot build. As a new user, I didn't realize Snapshots don't include LuCI. It would be helpful to note that users will only get a command line initially. A short description on how to get the full LuCI could be nic e.
4. missed ip numers
On step 3 we set the routerB IP to “169.254.31.1”, but on the next line you tell to set the PC IP to “192.254.31.101”. 192 is wrong, it should be 169
Thanks again for all the hard work on this device!
And I really hope that my new OpenWrt would work gre at on it.